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Institutes treating cancer patients and collecting fresh frozen tissue samples from their patients for medical cancer research purposes, or institutes on the verge of starting a collection can apply to become an active member of the TuBaFrost network.

The collected tissue samples remain stored at the collecting institute and under custodianship of the collecting institute. This means that the samples are not given away to an organization that will decide to what requests and under what terms you should contribute your samples. These decisions remain the responsibility of the participating institute. As a consequence you can:

• Still access the samples locally as you are accustomed to. You need only update the availability on the central database when those samples are locally in use.
• Benefit from being part of a tissue bank network, where large amounts of high quality well documented tissue samples of specific and uncommon types are available.
• Upload data of scientifically valuable collections, which can increase your chances to take part as contributor and/or collaborator in large scientific projects using new cutting edge technology.
• Negotiate directly with the requestor in a completely autonomous way regarding collaboration, publication or cost compensation.

To avoid inter-institutional variability or intrinsic bias in specimen quality in multi center studies TuBaFrost has developed Standard Operating Procedures to standardize sample quality. These Standard Operating Procedures and Quality Assurance measures must be implemented in each collecting institute in order to become a collector. These SOPs and QA can be found in the project Deliverables 3.1, 3.2 and Milestone 3.1.

Access to the joint collection is regulated on different levels and is explained in the Access rules page of this website, which have been described in the deliverables and milestones of WP 6

Access rules important for registration:

	a.	All collector institutes must have availability and access to cancer patient specimens, such as hospitals or existing networks of tumor banks.
	b.	Collector institutes must have the availability of sufficient personnel (technicians, pathologists, etc) and infrastructure capacity for the development and/or maintenance of a tumor bank, which meets the minimal standards and can collect tissue according to the protocols and rules set by the European Human Frozen Tumor Tissue Bank Network.
	c.	In order to participate in the European Human Frozen Tumor Tissue Bank Network all or potential collector institutes will establish a tissue bank, collect specimens and corresponding clinical data according to the standardized collection methods and policies of the European Human Frozen Tumor Tissue Bank Network in order to assure quality control of specimens and data as described in MS 3.1.
		1.	The collector institutes will identify a member of the institute, who is responsible for the scientific tasks of the tumor bank (macroscopic analysis, and selection and harvest of the surgery specimens). Those selected persons should demonstrate their interest in participating in the tumor bank and cancer research. He/she will be responsible for the functional aspects of the tissue bank, such as reception; processing and storing of the samples; quality controls; legal and ethical aspects; management of the information associated with each sample; and the distribution of the samples.
		2.	The collector institutes must identify a technician who will be responsible for the processing, storing, cryo-preservation, retrieval and shipping of the samples.
		3.	The collector institutes must indicate the existence of a budget, a physical space and equipment to perform the activities of the tumor bank.
	d.	The collector institutes are responsible for the association of samples with a locally valid consent (if necessary) or at least an opt out system, where patients can object to the use of their tissues for research purposes, to ensure legal research use of TUBAFROST material by the requestor institutions.
	e.	The collector institutes will be required to accept and implement the common policies and procedures approved by the TUBAFROST consortium (or the Steering Committee).
	f.	The collector institutes will be required to accept cooperative action between the tumor banks of the European Human Frozen Tumor Tissue Bank Network.

There can be only be one head collector in each institute, but there can be multiple collectors and requestors. The first person from an institute to join TuBaFrost as a collector is identified as the head collector, whereas other institute members can join as collectors and requestors. These titles should represent hierarchical positions within the institute. New collectors and requestors must be approved by the head collector who also has also the power to remove the requesting/collecting rights of any individual in the institute. If the title of head collector is to be assigned to another individual, it can be either arranged by the head collector, who immediately loses his/her privileges or via a message to the central office, where on a substantiated request the change can be made.

To access further information regarding why tissue contribution is needed please click here.
To register as collector, please click here.

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